


Awake

by madmorr



Category: Euphoria (TV 2019), The Giver Series - Lois Lowry
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Childhood Friends, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2020-07-31 20:38:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20121325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madmorr/pseuds/madmorr
Summary: In a society that limits human emotion with gene-editing and daily pills, an unconscious desire stirs in Rue to feel more, prompted by her first experience of a dream.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay I have several important disclaimers:  
1) This is set in an alternate universe that is a mix between the book The Giver by Lois Lowery and the movie Equals. In this world, there is no art, music, dance, color, etc. and people don't have the ability to dream when they sleep (supposedly).  
2) If my writing sounds flat/dry it's because I'm trying to mimic the tone that The Giver is written in, which reflects a dull, colorless society.  
3) I can't believe season 1 is over and I can't believe they made me ~feel something~ I thought I didn't have feelings

“What brings you here, Rue?”

“Well, last night I went to sleep like usual, but sometime after I fell asleep something….happened.”

“Please be more specific, Rue,” the Doctor prompted.

It was a simple phrase Rue was used to hearing in school or from her mother, as she had always struggled with her articulation, but in this instance she was at a loss for how to adequately explain the event.

“I’m not sure how to describe it, but it was like I was awake again. And I was in my classroom at school with my friend Jules. It was only she and I in the room, which was strange. I remember trying to tell her something. Something important but I can’t remember now what it was. And Jules kept looking away or interrupting me, which she doesn’t ordinarily do. I became frustrated with her, because she wouldn’t listen to me and I needed her to listen. I don’t know why it was so important for her to listen.” 

As she described it, the feeling of frustration and desperation flooded back to Rue and she struggled to remain focused on relaying the incident to the Doctor. The memory of the event, whatever it was that had interrupted her sleep, had been clearer when she first awoke, but now the details were difficult to recall.

“And her hair looked different,” she continued. “It was loose, hanging around her face instead of braided like usual.” That detail in particular stood out in Rue’s mind. “The experience was like a memory, but different because I know that has never happened before. Then all of a sudden I was in my bed again, still in my sleeping clothes. The conversation with Jules, it felt very real, but I don’t think it was, I never left my bed. It felt almost like the conversation happened while I was sleeping. Sorry, that’s the best I can explain it.” 

Rue looked down, shuffling her feet restlessly as the Doctor silently wrote something on a notepad.

“Have you ever had an experience like this before?” he asked.

“No.”

“Did you take your pill yesterday morning Rue?”

“Yes,” Rue replied, confused. “Of course.”

“And this morning too?”

“Yes.”

The Doctor nodded and made another note.

“Thank you, Rue for reporting this incident. The health center will adjust your pill dose so you won’t have another experience like that. You will receive the new dose tomorrow morning with your family unit’s usual pill delivery. To prevent anything disturbing your sleep tonight, a pill will be delivered to your dwelling with the evening meal delivery which you should take as soon as you’ve finished eating.” 

A new dose? All the pills that her family members took looked identical in size and shape. Rue had never heard of someone needing a dose adjustment, although she supposed such a detail wouldn’t likely come up in conversation. Still, her Health Maintenance class had never addressed this possibility. Had this happened to any of her friends?

“Don’t worry about it,” the Doctor added with a smile after spotting her concerned face. 

“What if it happens again?” she asked.

“The dose adjustment will prevent a recurrence,” he stated simply. “If it happens again, you should return here to report it,” he added, seeming to sense her need for more explicit reassurance.

She wanted to ask what it was, what exactly had happened to her, and why it happened, but restrained herself.

“You may go to school now,” he told her. “We will notify your instructor that you are on your way and provide an explanation for your tardiness.” 

“Thank you.” Rue stood and slung her book bag onto her shoulder, exited the building, and retrieved her bicycle from the rack out front. 

The morning bike ride to school usually entailed pleasant chatter with her neighbors and classmates Jules and Alexandra. Sometimes it was a rushed affair as she tried to catch up with them after waking up late. Today however, with work and school having begun almost an hour ago, the street was almost completely empty and Rue rode slowly, contemplating her visit to the health center. She couldn’t help but feel slightly dissatisfied. 

She shook her head, trying to clear it, and laughed softly to herself as her mother’s common refrain, “don’t dwell on it, Rue” entered her mind. Upon arriving at the school, she scanned the row of bicycles to find the one with the small metal plate declaring Jules as its owner. She wheeled her own bicycle into an open spot next to it.

“Hello Rue,” her instructor greeted her when she stepped into the classroom.

“I apologize for the interruption,” Rue rattled off automatically.

“We accept your apology,” the class responded uniformly and Rue slid quickly into her seat. 

Jules offered her a small, slightly questioning smile as she passed, which she pretended not to see. From her desk, two behind and three over from Jules’, Rue studied her friend, searching for any tiny change in her that might provide some explanation for what had happened last night. But Jules looked the same as always, with her hair neatly braided. Forcing herself to pull her eyes away from Jules, Rue caught Alexandra, who was sitting next to her, watching her with a mildly curious look on her face. Rue hurriedly directed her attention to their instructor, but knew she wouldn’t be questioned since calling attention to another’s deviations from the norm was considered rude and Alexandra of all people would never transgress that commonly accepted boundary.

Jules however, was another story, and wasted no time when class broke for midday meal. 

“Where were you this morning? Did you oversleep again? I waited at the corner for you.” 

As a restless sleeper, Rue struggled to wake promptly in the mornings and certainly couldn’t muster the kind of effervescence Jules always possessed. 

“I apologize for making you wait,” Rue offered, using the standard courtesy phrase to stall a bit. 

“I accept your apology,” Jules answered with a touch of impatience. 

“I stopped at the health center,” Rue admitted. “I slept poorly last night.” 

It wasn’t a lie Rue told herself, just a very abbreviated truth. Part of her wanted to ask Jules if she had ever had a similar experience to the one she’d had last night. After all, it was Jules that Rue had the strange nighttime conversation with. 

Jules looked at Rue for a long moment, seeming to know there was more. Had the gaze come from any other member in the community, Rue would have found the eye contact deeply uncomfortable, as such scrutiny was typically avoided. But Jules had long resisted such norms. 

From their earliest moments of childhood, Jules had received frequent chastisement for her lack of deference for community rules. Perhaps the most significant point of friction, had been her tendency to touch. Touching others in the community beyond the members of one’s family unit was routinely discouraged during the first few years of life. Developing control over one’s physical presence was one of the most important skills for young children to acquire. 

As a clumsy child, Rue had regularly sustained minor injuries and, lacking in restraint as young children often do, the pain would make her cry. When this happened, Jules would reach automatically toward her, placing a hand on Rue’s arm, shoulder, or most often, her cheek in an attempt to stop her tears. One incident in particular stood out in her memory. 

They were Threes, playing happily in the recreation area when Rue tripped and skinned her knee. Jules knelt beside Rue and took ahold of her hand, allowing her to squeeze tightly as the pain spiked and the tears began to flow. After the instructor had cleaned the wound, applied an ointment for Relief of Pain, and placed a bandage over it, he turned to Jules and gave her a quick smack across her hand with the discipline wand, a thin springy instrument used to administer a stinging reminder of the rules. Rue still remembered the precise words of their instructor: 

“Touch is _unnecessary_ and _inappropriate_ Jules. Comfort your friend with your words.” 

Jules had winced at the pain of the strike, but didn’t cry. She never cried, no matter how many strikes she’d receive for attempting to comfort Rue. Each transgression brought a swift and painful punishment, but Jules either couldn’t or wouldn’t correct the behavior. Anytime Rue was in pain, Jules was there softly patting her cheek or brushing a hand through her unruly curls. So Rue learned not to cry, so Jules wouldn’t get a smack. And eventually, Jules found more subtle ways to communicate with Rue, of which the intense gaze currently directed toward her was one.

Rue held her gaze, determined not to betray herself by looking away. Luckily, Jules had enough sense not to pry any further, and let the matter drop and the conversation at the table turned, as it so often did lately, to the Ceremony of Seventeen that was drawing ever closer. Rue fell silent and listened to the cheerful discussion of the group. Most of her peers had at least some idea of the possible career assignment they might receive, but Rue remained clueless. As far as she could tell, she didn’t have a strong aptitude in any particular area. That knowledge had caused her increasing anxiety over the past few months as her time as a child came to a close. The upcoming Ceremony would recognise her and her agemates as adults in the community as they received their career assignments and began official training. 

Between the anxiety associated with the reminder of the looming Ceremony and the persistent confusion about last night’s bizarre event, Rue had even more trouble than usual staying focused for the rest of the day. Something else bothered her too. A lingering discomfort having to do with her visit to the health center, although she couldn’t determine what exactly. 

She couldn’t put her finger on it until the next day when her family unit’s daily pills were delivered to their dwelling as usual with morning meal. It was the small container labelled with her name holding a pill just slightly larger than the one she’d always taken that allowed Rue to pinpoint the source of her unease. It was the question the Doctor had asked about whether or not she had taken her pill. Everyday for as long as she could remember, Rue had taken her pill just as her mother took hers, her father took his, and her younger brother Giovanni took his like everyone else in the community. Just as the morning meal arrived on their doorstep each morning, so did the pills. There was no reason why someone would not take their pill, there was no way to forget it. 

Only the Newchildren, too young to swallow a pill, were exempt, but even they still received a small dose mixed in with their milk. Rue recalled one day when Alexandra managed to convince her to join her in spending their after-school volunteer hour at the Nursery. Having spent nearly all her hours there caring for the Newchildren, Alexandra was almost as competent as the Nurturers themselves. She had shown Rue how to prepare a bottle for a fussy Newchild that day, explaining the correct measurement of formula, the proper heating process, and finally, how to add the correct amount of the liquid form of the pill using a dropper. At the time, Rue hadn’t felt anything besides relief when the fretful child took to the bottle and finally stopped crying. 

Now, the memory of that day held new significance in the realization that she herself had received those drops in her milk as a Newchild. She had never not taken the medication. The only time she could recall being conscious of the act of taking it was when she first received it in pill form as a Five. Rue had felt pride then, having finally mastered the ability to swallow a pill like her parents. But the novelty of it wore off quickly as it blended into her daily routine.

That simple question the Doctor asked introduced the possibility that a person _could_, either intentionally or unintentionally, neglect to take their pill. A possibility that, somehow, Rue had never considered. And it was that new awareness that prompted her to discreetly drop the pill into her pocket rather than her mouth while the attention of the members of her family unit was directed elsewhere. 

Not until she was alone in the washroom after brushing her teeth did Rue remove the pill from her pocket. She studied it for a long moment before letting it roll off her flattened palm and into the sink, where the running water carried it swiftly down the drain.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rue gets a glimpse of life without the medication.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took awhile, I had to pause to work on some other Rules ideas that took ahold of me. Y'know how it is. Thanks to everyone that encouraged me to continue writing this, I'm really excited about where I'm gonna go with it :)

The effects of the lack of medication didn’t start to appear until later that day, after school. 

Jules suggested they spend their volunteer hour at the fish hatchery and Rue agreed. They tried to convince Alexandra to join them, but she was anxious to care for a struggling Newchild at the Nurturing Center. She was concerned that the infant wasn’t meeting the necessary developmental milestones and would have to be Released.

Release to Elsewhere of a Newchild was always a disappointment but if they didn’t appear suited for life in the community, it had to be done. Rue and Jules offered Alexandra words of encouragement before heading out to the hatchery. 

Rue wasn’t especially excited about volunteering at the hatchery. She understood the importance of the work in providing food for the community but it wasn’t very interesting. However, she did appreciate the long bicycle ride it took to get to the edge of the community where it was located by the river. It meant more time spent with Jules which was always a good thing. 

Besides, as their years of volunteering in the community drew to a close, it didn’t seem to matter as much where the time was spent. With the Ceremony only a week away, the Elders had surely already completed their observation and made decisions about what career best fit each student.

They peddled past the playground at the Childcare Center, which was full of children playing noisily. Rue spotted Giovanni atop one of the play structures and gave him a wave, which he returned excitedly. Rue caught what she assumed was a brief look of longing on his face and smiled, knowing what had caused it. Her brother, only a Nine, was eager for the Ceremony where he would become a Ten and start his volunteer hours. His desire for independence and the freedom to pursue his interests had been a frequent topic of conversation at the family’s evening meals. 

“Do you think you’ll apply for children when you’re an adult?” Jules asked.

“I don’t know. I guess I haven’t thought much about it.” 

“I think it could be fun, raising children.” 

Rue shrugged. “You’d have to apply for a spouse first,” she reminded her. 

All community members who wished to apply for children had to first be paired with a spouse that was deemed compatible with them to ensure a partnership capable of providing the stable and nurturing environment that children required. The decision was made by the Committee of Elders, which sometimes took years to decide on a match. 

“Maybe the Elders would match you and I!” Jules exclaimed.

Rue laughed, then thought about it. As friends, their relationship was well-balanced with Rue’s calm and steady demeanor complimenting Jules’ exuberance. It seemed an ideal personality match. Were she and Jules both to apply for a spouse, it wasn’t unthinkable that they would be paired together. 

The thought of it caused a bizarre jittery sensation in her stomach.

Upon arriving at the hatchery, they parked their bicycles in the ports outside the building, then went inside to sign in and an attendant led them back to the tanks where they put on aprons and rubber gloves. The fish were water-dwelling creatures that were somewhere between plants and people meaning they were alive, but didn’t speak. Rue had always thought they were a little strange with their wide, staring eyes and gulping mouths, but Jules found them fascinating. Today, their job was to measure the fish and record their length. Any fish under 9 inches or with any visible abnormalities was dropped into a separate tank. The collected information was then used to weed out unfavorable characteristics from the gene pool to ultimately improve the quality of the food. It was the kind of work the kept hands busy, but left the mind free to wander. 

Rue wondered about Jules’ Assignment as she worked. Unlike Rue, she had a wide range of strengths, but that didn’t make the task of guessing her career any easier. Her playful nature could make her well-suited for a job working with children either as a Nurturer or an Instructor. However, her intelligence could lead the Elders to assign her a job in a more scientific field. 

Rue doubted any of their classmates could rival Jules’ intelligence except perhaps Nathanial who was a quiet, intense person with no sense of humor. Of course, it was difficult to tell, because exam results were only discussed between the instructors, students, and their parents since comparing scores with one’s peers could make for an uncomfortable situation. Rue occasionally felt envious of her friend’s focus, but mostly she felt proud of her. She also felt that Jules possessed a kind of intelligence that couldn’t be measured by tests. She wasn’t sure exactly what to call it or how to quantify it, but she felt it in Jules’ gaze and her laugh and what she remembered of her touch.

Her concern for others could fit the role of Doctor, Rue thought. And of course, there was the possibility of Hatchery Assistant. Rue laughed to herself at the image of Jules dressed in the bulky waterproof overalls that all hatchery workers wore. Despite Jules’ interest in the fish, Rue felt certain her friend was destined for greater things than measuring and sorting the peculiar creatures.

Rue was about to drop a fish back into the main tank when something about it changed, just for a split second, snapping her out of her thoughts. Pausing and looking closer at it, the thing happened again. It wasn’t the size or the shape that changed, it was something about its scales. Some quality Rue had no name for. All she knew was that, in some indescribable way, they had become _more_. 

“Jules,” she called, beckoning to her friend. “Come here.”

Jules released the fish she had just grabbed and moved to stand beside Rue. 

“What?”

“Look at this one’s scales. Do you see anything strange?”

Jules frowned, studying the fish for a moment. 

“No, it looks normal to me,” she concluded. 

“Are you sure?”

“Rue, you have to put it back in the water,” Jules reminded her gently. 

Rue didn’t want to release it. She was sure something about the fish was different, but the mysterious quality was gone again and it looked like a normal fish as Jules had confirmed. Reluctantly, she lowered it back into the water, then opened her hand to let it dart away. 

— — —

“You’ve been very quiet tonight Rue,” her father observed as the family ate their evening meal. “How was your day?" 

The rest of her family members had all shared about their day as was customary, but Rue had remained silent, only pretending to listen while she mulled over the afternoon’s events. 

“It was…good,” she answered carefully. “I went to the hatchery with Jules. I don’t really enjoy the work there, but I always like spending time with her. She makes everything fun.” 

Her mother nodded thoughtfully. “Jules is a good friend,” she mused, “I’m glad you enjoy her company, but you should start to prepare yourself for the changes that are coming. The Ceremony marks the end of your childhood. That means no more volunteer hours and limited recreation time. And after your initial year of training, you’ll be finished with school, too. You’ll no longer be spending time with the same group of people you’ve grown up with. You, Alexandra, Jules, and your other groupmates will move into separate spheres.”

“Jules and I will always be friends,” Rue responded. She was sure of it.

“I had close friends at your age, too. Amaya and Nia,” she recalled fondly. “I thought we would always be friends, but childhood friendships usually fade away gradually as you enter adult life. Relationships with those you work and live with become more important that friendship.”

Her mother’s calm words brought on an unexpected rush of defiance and frustration in Rue. She longed to tell her mother she was wrong but she could never speak to her that way. Under the table, her hand curled into a tight fist. The intensity of the reaction startled her.

She had to work to match her mother’s measured tone when she spoke. “Do you ever see Amaya and Nia out in the community?”

“Once in awhile,” her mother answered, “but only in passing.” 

Rue couldn’t imagine seeing Jules in the future and exchanging only a polite nod or smile of acknowledgement. She didn’t care if they lived separate lives, there could never be that sort of distance between them. 

Rue soon excused herself to start work on her evening school assignment but her mind wandered elsewhere. 

She couldn’t stop thinking about what Jules had said about them being matched as spouses and the image of them living in a dwelling together. She wasn’t sure about the children yet, but each partnership had a waiting period of at least three years before they could apply for their first child during which their compatibility would be carefully assessed. The idea of it made her cheeks heat up the way they did whenever she exerted herself during rushed bicycle rides to school or energetic games played in the recreation area.

It took her twice as long as usual to finish her work by which time the rest of her family had gone to sleep. 

Rue anticipated that the day’s events would keep her awake for awhile, but a soon as she laid down, she became aware of the overwhelming exhaustion she felt. Eager for the relief of deep sleep, she closed her eyes. 

What felt like just moments later, she heard movement on the other side of her sleeping room and opened her eyes to find the room softly lit and Jules standing there.

She was dressed in sleeping clothes and Rue watched as she removed the tie from the end of her braid and ran her fingers through the strands to loosen them until her long hair hung free around her shoulders in delicate waves. 

Jules moved to sit on the edge of the bed, smiling softly at Rue. Putting a hand up to cradle her face, the way she had when they were children, she stroked her cheekbone gently with her thumb. Rue leaned into the touch. A small instinct cautioned her that this was wrong, it was against the rules, but somewhere in her mind there was an awareness that this moment she was experiencing existed in another place and time. 

She wanted the moment to last forever, but all too soon Jules was standing again and moving away toward the door. 

Rue tried to call her back, but found that her vocal cords seemed unable to produce sound. 

“No don’t leave!” she tried to say, but the words remained stuck in her throat and Jules disappeared through the door. Rue made one last, desperate attempt to call her friend’s name and finally succeeded. 

And then she was awake. She was sitting up in her room, which was still dark, with her heart beating rapidly. The more she focused on her heartbeat, the faster it pounded until the sensation seemed to take over her entire body. Her breath came in ragged gasps as if she had just run a sprinting race and she became aware of tears beginning to spill down her cheeks. 

She hadn’t cried in many years, since her early days of childhood, and even those tears had been brought on by physical pain only. But safe in her bed, she had not been hurt, but the inexplicable tears continued to fall. Rue curled in on herself in an attempt to contain the sobs and could only hope they would stop soon.

After several long minutes, the tears finally abated but an unidentifiable ache remained that somehow seemed to rest in her head, chest, and stomach at the same time. 

Her first instinct was to go to the intercom in the common area of the dwelling and request a delivery of Relief of Pain but then she would have to explain the precise location of the pain which she herself could not determine. They would also ask for the cause of the pain and beyond not knowing how to explain it, she didn’t _want_ to explain it to another person. Something about it felt private. It belonged to her, whatever it was. But the Doctor had instructed her to return the the Health Center if it happened again. To hide the experience rather than report it would be a violation of the community rules. But reporting it would require her to admit that she had not taken her pill, another violation. A very serious one.

Rue wished she had thought more carefully about her choice to discard the pill. But she hadn’t. It was a split-second decision. She hadn’t anticipated the magnitude of the consequences.

The dilemma kept her awake for the next couple of hours until it was time to get ready for school. When she sat down for the morning meal, the container with her pill sat innocently next to her plate. She ate slowly, giving herself time to weigh her options. On one hand, the jarring awakening she’d experienced, the frightening physical response, and the lingering ache all tempted her to take the pill. However, part of her didn’t want the mysterious sleep-visions to stop, despite the discomfort they brought.

If she took the pill, no one had to know of her transgression, and life could continue on as usual. 

But could it?

Ultimately, it was her brother that made the decision for her. 

“What are you doing, Rue?” Giovanni asked curiously from across the table and she realized she had been frowning intensely at the pill in her hand while trying to make the choice. 

“Nothing,” she replied, hastily tossing the pill into her mouth and swallowing it with a gulp of water. Giovanni was the last person she wanted to raise the suspicions of. He talked too much. 

As Rue finished getting ready for school, she became aware that she couldn’t shake the feeling of hollowness Jules had left her with in the night. But that wasn’t the real Jules, she had to remind herself, it couldn’t be. 

The real Jules was waiting for her at the corner as usual when she stepped out of her dwelling. A tiny hint of the fluttering feeling she’d felt yesterday stirred within her, but after a moment it was gone. She tried to call it back without success. 

“How did you sleep last night?” she asked Jules after they exchanged greetings, trying to keep her tone casual. 

Jules grinned. “Better than you, it looks like. Were you up all night thinking about the Ceremony?"

“Ugh,” Rue groaned, “don’t remind me.”

It took her the entire ride to school to ask Jules the question spinning in her mind.

“Do you think we’ll still be friends when we’re older?

Jules gave her a puzzled look before answering, “Yes, of course.” 

Then, as Jules searched Rue’s face, the thing happened again. The thing that had happened to the fish’s scales flashed in Jules’ eyes. They changed, just for a moment.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Rue, the Ceremony of Seventeen brings more questions than answers...

The morning of the Ceremony arrived all too quickly. The curiosity tempting Rue to further explore the effects of going without her daily pill was pushed aside and she clung to the familiarity of her normal routine as the uncertainty approached. But even with the medication, the nighttime sleep-visions continued as well as the strange flashes of change she saw while awake. She thought again about returning to the Doctor to report the strange occurrences, but didn’t want potential treatment to interfere with the Ceremony. It would have to wait until after, she decided. 

There was an almost tangible excitement in the dwelling that day as her family unit rushed through the morning meal and put the dishes out on the back step for collection. However, Rue took more time than usual to ready herself, methodically braiding her loose, wavy curls into a single braid—the standard hairstyle for her age—and feeling carefully with her hand to ensure it was straight and neat.

Rue, her parents, and brother then mounted their bicycles and began the ride to the Community Center. As they passed Jules’ dwelling down the street, Rue saw that the bicycle ports outside were empty, meaning she and her family members had already left. Rue pedaled faster, anxious to see Jules before the start of the Ceremony. Thankfully, upon arriving at the Center, she spotted Jules waiting outside for her. Quickly parking her bike, Rue said a hurried goodbye to her family unit and rushed to join Jules. 

Her friend greeted her with a wide smile. She looked excited and self-assured and Rue found her nerves dissipating a little in her presence.

“Ready?” Jules asked.

“No,” Rue laughed and they entered the Auditorium together, separating to sit in the seats labelled with their birth numbers. 

Both Jules and Rue were born early in their birth year within a few weeks of each other, having been the Ninth and Fourteenth birth respectively of the standard fifty total Newchildren born that year. Consequently, she and Jules were in the same row with only four seats in between them. It gave Rue some peace of mind, having her close by. 

With the Chief Elder of the Committee of Elders presiding, the Ceremony began as always, with the Ones. Every Newchild born in the last year received a name and was placed into the waiting arms of their new guardians. Most of the successive years passed quickly with simple recognition of the year past and the one to come. Fives gave up the simple slip-on shoes of early childhood and received shoes with laces as their developing dexterity would allow them to begin learning to tie bows. The Sevens received their first school book bags and the Nines eagerly claimed perhaps the most exciting emblem of independence: a bicycle. 

Rue caught a glimpse of Camille who used to be Jules’ older sibling. She had received the assignment of Instructor of Nines at her Ceremony of Seventeen six years ago when she and Jules had been only Elevens. Rue was glad to see that Camille appeared happy in her role as she shepherded the new group of Nines back to their seats.

Next, Giovanni proudly took the stage with his group mates as they became Tens, and accepted their new special notebooks in which they would record their volunteer hours. 

After the Twelves, there was a break for the midday meal, although Rue, along with most of the other Sixteens, had little interest in eating and was impatient for the Ceremony to continue.

Back in the Auditorium after the meal, the Ceremony proceeded into the teen years which were less distinctive and seemed to blend together, as most age groups only received a new school textbook for the coming year or new garments. Finally, as the year behind theirs became Sixteens, Rue felt herself and her peers sit a little straighter, ready for their turn. 

The Chief Elder smiled serenely out at them all. After a brief speech about the significance of this Ceremony, she began to call them up one-by-one in order by birth number. 

When she called number Nine, Jules strode to the stage with a kind of quiet confidence. 

“Kind, joyful, exuberant, intelligent, and dedicated,” the Elder listed, “these are the qualities we see in Jules. However, I’m sure many of you remember a time early in her life, when, if one had used such words to describe Jules, they would have been chastised for imprecise language.” 

A few murmurs of agreement and soft chuckles sounded throughout the audience. 

“For awhile, we had a very _difficult_ Jules. I think her tantrums could be heard a block away from the Nurturing Center.”

Jules smiled sheepishly at that and gave a tiny shrug of her shoulders that brought on more laughter from the crowd. 

“No matter how many times Jules was reminded of the importance of precision of language, she continued to insist that we refer to her as “she”, not “he”. Even reinforcement with the discipline wand made no difference. It seemed that the more we tried to correct her, the more insistent she became.”

Rue remembered that time clearly, even though they had been so young. She herself had received the sting of the discipline wand on multiple occasions for referring to Jules as “she”. But the pain hadn’t mattered to her, because it simply made no sense to call her “he” when doing so clearly caused her much distress. She had found it confusing, the reluctance of the adults to accept Jules as she was. In retrospect, Rue assumed that they didn’t want their ratio imbalanced, since the Population Engineers took care to ensure that each year of Newchildren contained twenty-five XX chromosomes and twenty-five XY. But the fact that “he” pronouns were used for those with XY and “she” pronouns for XX seemed an arbitrary distinction to Rue. It had been an enormous relief when the instructors and other members of the Community finally relented and stopped punishing Jules and started using her proper pronouns. 

“Once we began to refer to her as she asked,” the Elder recalled, “her temperament changed dramatically seemingly overnight. Much to the relief of the Instructor of Threes,” she added with a wry smile. “And ever since, she has shown diligence in her studies, notable intelligence, and an eye for detail. It is the combination of all these qualities that has led the Committee to assign Jules the role of Geneticist.”

Rue couldn’t contain her gasp of excitement. It was a perfect assignment and from the smile on Jules’ face, she thought so too. Geneticist was a very well-respected and highly coveted position.

“We entrust Jules with the genetic health of our Community. Jules, thank you for your childhood,” the Chief Elder concluded sincerely and Rue joined the applause enthusiastically as Jules returned to her seat, holding her folder of information about her assignment.

Caught up in a mix of satisfaction at her friend’s wonderful assignment and mounting anticipation of her own turn, the next four assignments passed swiftly without making much of an impression in Rue’s mind. Number Thirteen, Christopher, sat back down next to Rue after receiving the assignment of Instructor of Physical Education.

She took in a deep breath and readied herself to stand. 

“Fifteen.”

Rue thought she’d misheard, but looked to her right and saw a startled look on Sama, number Fifteen’s, face. A confused muttering swept through the crowd as Sama unsteadily rose to her feet and glanced uncertainly at Rue before making her way up to the stage. Rue couldn’t hear the words of the Chief Elder anymore, and had no idea what assignment Sama had received when she took her seat again. Number Sixteen was called up, then Seventeen, then Eighteen….

They skipped her. They actually _skipped_ her. 

Once she recovered from the initial wave of shock, Rue’s mind began to race with possible reasons for her omission. It had to be a mistake, it _had_ to be. But at the same time it couldn’t be. The Chief Elder didn’t make mistakes like that. In all the many years of Ceremonies Rue had attended, never once had a name been skipped. Had she not completed the required number of volunteer hours? No, that was impossible, she’d done at least as many as her peers. Had she simply failed to show aptitude in any area at all? She pictured the Elders gathered together, discussing her placement and shaking their heads in disappointment, coming up empty-handed. 

What was it? What had she done wrong?

Then it hit her.

They knew she didn’t take her pill. To not take her pill was a transgression in itself, but to do it in secret was another. It was a lie, the most serious of all offenses. Somehow, they’d found out. They knew she had broken the rules and this was her punishment. No assignment, no career, no future. 

Rue felt a twisting sensation in her stomach and the room seemed to go out of focus. What would she do? She had never heard of someone not receiving an assignment, it seemed impossible. What could an adult person’s life in the Community consist of without a career? Unless….they were going to Release her. That was it, that was the only logical conclusion. Without an assignment, she could not be part of the Community. Skipping over her in the Ceremony was just a public shaming before the real disciplinary action. She would be sent Elsewhere.

The words of the Chief Elder were muddled to Rue’s ears as she struggled to hold together some semblance of outward composure as her inner turmoil steadily intensified. The occasional worried glances she received from her classmates didn’t help. Years of community courtesy training had Rue, like a reflex, feeling ashamed that she was a cause of discomfort for them at a time when they should be excited and proud. Rue found a sliver of comfort in the fact that Jules was seated far enough to her left that if she kept her eyes focused straight ahead, she couldn’t see the concern she knew she’d find on her friend’s face. Time seemed to move in strange, disjointed lurches with the numbers racing by while the Elder’s words sounded slow and slurred.

At some point, Rue vaguely registered that her friend Alexandra was assigned Nurturer, but no other Assignment penetrated her worries. Finally, number Fifty received their assignment and the applause quieted rather quickly as an almost palpable silence fell over the Community as it waited for an explanation.

“Rue,” said the Chief Elder, “number Fourteen, please come to the stage now.”

On shaky legs, Rue ascended the steps to the stage and stood next to the podium. 

“I apologize, Rue, for the anxiety I have caused you,” the Chief Elder said kindly.

Rue tried to speak, to utter the standard response of acceptance, but found that she couldn’t with her voice stuck in her throat. She merely inclined her head and the Chief Elder looked back out at the Community. Her next words confirmed Rue’s fears.

“Rue has not been given an Assignment.”

But then she spoke again.

“Rue has been _selected_. Rue has been selected as our next Keeper of Records.” 

Rue didn’t have any idea what that meant, but it seemed significant, judging by the Community’s collective intake of breath. Her only guess was that it had to do with the public records in which the details of every community member were kept. But that sounded to Rue like perhaps the most boring and unremarkable job in the community, which couldn’t possibly require such distinction. 

“Our Keeper is the most honored member of our community,” the Elder explained. “They hold knowledge of the past and advise the Committee on our most difficult decisions. The Keeper possesses wisdom, a kind of understanding that can lead us in times of uncertainty. Rue does not yet have wisdom, that can only come with time, but she has the qualities necessary to attain it. She is curious, discerning, perceptive, a critical thinker, and relentlessly inquisitive,” the Elder stated.

“I’m sure many of us remember Rue’s favorite word as a child: _Why_. It seemed, there was never a simple answer to satisfy Rue. Each response was followed by more questions. _Why does a ball bounce? Why do we sleep? Why does it get dark at night?_” 

The audience, which had been almost unnaturally quiet, rapt with attention, relaxed a little at this statement and Rue spotted a few smiles.

“We remember her persistence in a pursuit of knowledge that at times, was so intense that it kept her from the task in front of her.” 

Rue was surprised to find herself smiling a bit at that as she recalled the way her wandering mind so often distracted her from her schoolwork. A soft chuckle rose from the Community and Rue spotted an old instructor of hers shaking his head and smiling fondly at the memory.

“Rue,” the Elder turned to her to address her directly “that curiosity that you have spent your childhood working hard to control will be one of your greatest assets, I’m told.”

“However,” she said, turning to the Community once again, “Rue will face pain that none of us in the Community can comprehend.” 

What pain could there be? The Community was so safe. Beyond the occasional trip or minor bicycle accident, there was no pain. What could possibly hurt her? Rue’s eyes involuntarily found Jules in the audience. Her face was solemn, marred by a slight frown.

“Our current Keeper is the only one among us who understands this pain.”

Rue looked away from Jules and followed the Chief Elder’s gaze as she spoke, to another Elder seated near the Committee, but slightly apart. Rue assumed this was the Keeper, but had never seen her in the Community before. Unlike the the others, who wore their hair cut short in the typical style of an Elder, the Keeper’s hair fell down past her shoulders. It wasn’t just her hair length that set her apart. Rue couldn’t exactly pinpoint what about her was different, but it was something in her face. Perhaps she looked older than the others?

“In addition to Rue’s notable character traits, the current Keeper tells us that Rue possesses another quality called the Capacity to See Beyond. None of us can understand this ability, but it is essential for a Keeper’s acquisition of wisdom,” the Elder asserted. “The Committee has spent long years deliberating this selection, and we are certain we have made the right choice. Rue, we thank you for your childhood.”

— — —

Rue noted the difference in size between their folders as she and Jules exited the Auditorium to find their bicycles. Rue’s held what felt like only a single sheet of paper while Jules’ appeared to contain pages and pages of information about her assignment.

“Congratulations,” Jules said. Her expression was kind, but restrained in some way. 

“You too,” Rue responded, maybe too hastily. “Geneticist is perfect. I’m so glad for you. You’ll be amazing.” She was rambling, overcompensating in a weak attempt to cover the glaring difference between them now. 

“I knew something was different…” Jules murmured pensively, ignoring Rue’s vapid chatter and frowning at the ground as she spoke. “That day at the fish hatchery…and sometimes lately, the way you look at me…” she mused, seeming to grapple with her words. “Is it what the Elder said? Seeing Beyond or whatever?” 

“I don’t know Jules,” Rue answered softly. “I don’t know what it is.”

Jules nodded thoughtfully.

“Well you’ve always been a little different, I guess,” she said with a small smile. 

In any other context, Rue might’ve bristled at such a comment. Difference was not a good thing. But it almost sounded nice when Jules said it. Like maybe it was something to be proud of. But Rue wanted to tell her friend that she was afraid. She wanted to tell her how confused she was. That she was worried that the Elders had made a mistake.

“I hope the Elders know what they’re doing,” Rue stated hollowly. 

Jules tilted her head slightly as she regarded Rue, then nodded. 

“I think they do.” 

Rue wished Jules would say something else. Something lighthearted and funny to break the strange tension between them. But then her parents were calling to her and beckoning.

“I’ll see you at school tomorrow,” Jules said, seeming reluctant to leave the conversation there.

“Right, see you,” Rue answered with a half-hearted wave. 

Rue had almost forgotten about school. At least that would remain the same. For one more year anyway. After that, she and her classmates would be finished with their schooling and begin full-time work in their assigned positions. Or _selected_ position in her case. They would move out of their family dwellings and into the smaller, solitary dwellings of independent adults, officially leaving behind their childhoods. 

But Rue wasn’t ready to think about that yet.

— — —

“Last again, Rue? Surely you have some feelings to share from today?” 

Over the evening meal, Giovanni had chattered on excitedly about his plans for his first day of volunteering and her parents had shared about the pride they felt, praising Rue’s selection and the honor associated with it. But Rue had remained quiet, feeling that the praise was unearned. She still didn’t really understand what it meant.

“I think I felt everything a person can feel today,” Rue said wearily, thinking of her nervous excitement, her joy at Jules’ assignment, her shock, her fear. “But now I just feel confused.”

“I remember feeling unsure after receiving my assignment, too,” her father said comfortingly. “I wasn’t entirely convinced that the Department of Justice was right for me, but I soon saw that the Elders weren’t wrong.”

“I’m sure many of your peers are feeling the same way right now,” her mother added bracingly.

But the words of her parents did little to put her mind at ease, and nor did the single sheet of information about her position as she read it at her desk after the evening meal. 

1\. Your training will begin tomorrow immediately after the end of school hours. Report to the Keeper’s dwelling through the Annex behind the House of the Old. 

2\. You are not permitted to apply for a spouse.

3\. You are not permitted to apply for children.

4\. You are permanently exempt from Conception Duty.

5\. You are not permitted to apply for Release.

6\. You are not permitted to request Relief of Pain for any discomfort related to your training.

7\. You are not permitted to speak about your training to anyone in the Community apart from the current Keeper.

8\. You may lie.

Rue sat back, stunned.

Suddenly, she was barred from what seemed to be all parts of Community life and given permission to do what she had always been told was the worst thing a person could do. 

The first rule gave the expected details about when and where her training would take place, but the location perplexed her. The Keeper’s dwelling? Rue had never been inside another person’s dwelling before. 

The second rule came as a shock and while the third rule was somewhat redundant because a person without a spouse could not apply for children, it surprised her nonetheless. Of course, some people who applied for children were denied for one reason or another, but Rue had never heard of someone being outright prevented from applying. It wasn’t as though Rue had ever been committed to the idea of raising children, but to be told she wasn’t allowed was jarring.

Her exemption from Conception Duty was less of a blow, but still unexpected. Every person of childbearing ability in the community received a Conception Duty summons at some point before they were paired with a spouse and acquired children of their own. Her mother had once told her about her conception experience that had happened when she was younger. She had been given a year off of work during which she carried and gave birth to a Newchild under the care of the Community Doctors and Population Engineers. Apparently the process was a bit uncomfortable at times, but otherwise quite simple. After the birth, she had returned to her life as usual. Rue had once asked her mother what name the Newchild had been given, curious if she knew the person her mother had given birth to, but she didn’t know. She had never even held the child, apparently.

The rule concerning Release unnerved her. Release to Elsewhere was a normal part of life in the Community, but only for those in the House of the Old. Elders who felt satisfied with their life could apply for Release, in which case the Ceremony of Release would take place to honor their life before their departure. In any other instance, Release was viewed as a shame, a failure of the Community like the rare Release of an inadequate Newchild or an adult that had broken too many rules. The Community was so carefully constructed to ensure that every member had a role, a purpose. Rue couldn’t imagine anyone of her age choosing to apply for Release. 

She had never thought much about the details of her future, if it would involve a spouse or children, but the rules listed on her paper seemed to drastically limit her options. She felt disoriented and confused by the sense of loss of things she didn’t know could be taken away. For so many months, the only bit of solace she could hold onto as the Ceremony approached was the knowledge that the day would bring an answer, a certainty. But instead, she now had more questions than ever. 

In the back of her mind, the image of her and Jules sharing a life together began to fade. She felt foolish and naive now for ever thinking it could happen.

— — —

No one seemed particularly focused at school the next day, all anxious for their first day of training after school. When the final bell dismissed them, instead of heading out together to volunteer as they were accustomed to, she and Jules went in opposite directions.

“Can’t wait to hear how it goes!” Jules called as she departed with a wave. 

Rue watched her go uneasily, thinking of the rule forbidding her to discuss her training. What would she and Jules talk about now? Was this the beginning of the gradual distancing her mother had described? The nagging doubt followed Rue to the House of the Old where, after sliding her bike into a spot, she walked around back to a building just adjacent to it. 

The attendant behind the desk looked up and smiled at her when she entered.

“Good afternoon, Rue,” he greeted her pleasantly. “The Keeper is waiting for you, you may go right in,” he said, gesturing to a door to the left and pressing a button on the wall.

Rue heard the click of a lock and glanced unsurely at the attendant who merely gave her a simple nod of encouragement. She had never encountered a locked door in the Community before aside from the simple latches on the bathroom stalls at school.. 

She couldn’t think of any reason why an entire room would need to be locked, until she turned the knob and stepped inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter won't take 4 months I swear


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rue finally gets some answers...

It was a room unlike any other Rue had ever been in. It was quite long, almost like a huge hallway, but that was most certainly not the strangest thing about it. The walls on either side of the room were covered by floor-to-ceiling bookcases so tall that a ladder was attached to them, presumably to climb up to reach the top shelves. Rue, familiar only with her school textbooks and the large rule book in her family’s dwelling, never imagined so many books could exist. What information might they contain? 

On the little wall space not occupied by bookshelves, there hung some squares and rectangles baring inexplicable swirls of differing shades, some that created a recognizable image but others only an abstract and unintelligible mix of shapes. Rue recognized one of the images as a giraffe, only because she remembered playing with a small plastic model of one in the Childcare Center when she was little along with other make-believe creatures like horses and dogs. 

Unlike the simple light fixtures elsewhere in the community, large, ornamental light structures hung from the ceilings which were much higher than usual. In the corner to her left stood perhaps the most peculiar object of all. It surprised her at first, the sight of a person moving within the rectangle propped against the wall, but then she realized it wasn’t another person at all, but herself. She recognized her hair and the room reflected behind her.

“Welcome Rue,” said a voice near the end of the room, startling Rue slightly. She had been so absorbed in studying the bizarre room, she had momentarily forgotten why she was there. The voice belonged to the Elder with the long hair Rue had seen at the Ceremony, the Keeper, who was seated in a chair in a sort of living area. “Come in and sit down,” the Keeper encouraged with a kind smile. 

Rue walked across the room and seated herself on a couch opposite the Keeper’s chair. She noticed as she sat down that the legs of the furniture weren’t simple and straight, but curved and the material sank down as she sat upon it more like her bed than a chair. Her eyes briefly strayed to a very large wooden contraption sat in the corner of the room that looked almost like an oddly shaped table except that its top was propped up on one side so that it slanted so nothing could be set atop it. There was a bench sitting in front of it and a row of alternating light and dark rectangles. Rue longed to go investigate it to determine its purpose. 

“This must be a little overwhelming for you,” the Keeper guessed. “When the very first Keeper was instated, back when the Community was first created, they were allowed a small collection of artifacts. The objects here have been passed down, Keeper to Keeper since the beginning. I promise that you’ll have time to explore all the contents of this room, but not today.”

Rue was taken aback. She wasn’t sure what she had expected after only a brief glimpse of the Keeper at the Ceremony, but the energy with which she spoke was surprising. Despite the age evident in her face, there was a youthful quality to her voice. 

“You have a question,” the Keeper stated. 

Rue nodded, uncertain if the statement was an invitation to ask her question.   
  
“You may ask me any questions you have,” she encouraged, seeming to read Rue’s hesitation effortlessly. “If there is something you want to know, we mustn’t waste time.”

Rue was unaccustomed to receiving encouragement to ask more questions. Her inquisitive nature had always been systematically discouraged. It took her a moment to sort through the many questions swirling inside her head and decide on one to ask.

“Well,” Rue began. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean by ‘the beginning’. Hasn’t the Community always existed?”

“No. There was a time before and perhaps, if the wisdom I’ve acquired in my many years as Keeper can be trusted, there will be a time after, too. That’s what you’re here to learn, to know. The time before.”

“From these books?” Rue guessed, glancing at the towering shelves. 

“No, the books here contain only a tiny fraction of the information you will have access to.”

“So where…where is it all stored, this information?” Rue asked, imagining even bigger rooms with even taller bookshelves, her head almost spinning at the thought of it. 

“Ah,” the Keeper smiled. “It exists in a non-physical plane that contains every thought, every feeling, every memory of every person that has ever lived. Every single individual facet of the human experience through all time. But I suppose that explanation won’t mean much to you now. It will be easier to show you, rather than explain with words. Now, you’ve already begun to see color, haven’t you?” she asked excitedly, looking at Rue expectantly. 

“Forgive me,” she apologized, spotting Rue’s blank expression, “I’m getting ahead of myself. You’ve started seeing strange, inexplicable changes in everyday things, yes? That others don’t seem to notice?” 

Rue nodded slowly then, recognizing that description. “Something like that happened the other day while I was looking at the scales of a fish, and then again the next day in my friend Jules’ eyes,” she offered unsurely. “Is that—what did you call it? Color?” 

“Yes. That must be blue. You’re beginning to see the color blue. And in your friend’s eyes? That’s very interesting,” she murmured, appearing lost in thought for a brief moment before giving a little shake of her head and continuing. “So that will be the best place to start,” she exclaimed with renewed vigor, and stood up, walking with surprising speed for an Elder to the bookshelf and returning with one of the books in her hand. After placing the book on the table between them, she sat back down.

But hadn’t she said they wouldn’t be using the books? Confused, Rue was about to question it when the Keeper held up her hand.  
“No more questions for now, it’s time to test your vision. Now, give me your hand and close your eyes.”

Rue waited a beat, not sure if she was serious but the Keeper held out her hand and made a quick beckoning motion with her fingers. So Rue reached out her hand and let her take ahold of it in both of her own. It felt awkward and foreign, to be touched by someone outside her family unit, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it. 

“This will be tricky,” the Keeper cautioned. “I have no way of explaining exactly how to find what I want you to see. There is no simple step-by-step procedure. But it shouldn’t be too difficult this time, since what I want you to see exists here and now in this room,” she explained, gesturing to the book on the table. “All I want you to do, is see the book through my eyes,” she said as if it was the most simple, normal request. “I’ll try to project my vision to make it easier for you to find, but you’ll need to feel for it, and once you find it, grab ahold and let it take over your consciousness. Now, close your eyes,” she prompted.

Rue obeyed, a bit apprehensively. 

“Now try to think of absolutely nothing, and look past the darkness behind your eyelids,” she commanded. “Reach into the nothingness until you find something.”

Rue tried her best to follow the odd instructions. She squeezed her eyes shut tighter, feeling a little silly as she searched. 

“Keep trying,” the Keeper encouraged. “Don’t open your eyes.” 

Rue was about to give up when she found it. It was like her eyes were open again, only they weren’t. She could see the room again but from the position of the Keeper while simultaneously knowing that her own body was still seated on the couch. However, it was the book on the table the vision was focused on, and Rue was startled to see that the inexplicable flashes that she had seen in Jules’ eyes were there on the book, although it wasn’t a fleeting glimpse this time. The book cover maintained the quality, the color. Blue, Rue recalled. That was its name.

As suddenly as it had come, the vision was gone, and Rue was back to looking into the darkness of her own closed eyes. Slowly, she opened them, and was disappointed to see that the book on the table looked normal, with no blue. 

“It’s gone now…” Rue lamented. “But I saw it, the blue.”

“Very good,” the Keeper praised, releasing Rue’s hand. “You did well for the first time.”

“Where did it go?” 

“It’s still there, you just can’t see it,” she explained. “It’ll take time to develop your permanent color vision. You have to practice holding onto a color when you see it. It takes a lot of concentration at first, but eventually you’ll see all the colors, all the time.”

“There are more?!” Rue asked in disbelief.

The Keeper laughed. “Yes, seven. And then an infinite number of shades, variations, of each one.”

“Can I see the blue again?” Rue asked hopefully. 

“Here,” the Keeper said, extending her hand to Rue again, “I’ll show you the blue sky I saw this morning on my walk.”

Rue took her hand eagerly.

“It will be more difficult this time, because this vision is a memory, it exists in the past. It is only from a few hours ago, but you’ll need to reach farther to grasp it.”

Rue nodded, although she didn’t fully understand. She only wanted to see the blue again. 

Closing her eyes, she looked into the darkness. 

“Try to forget where you are,” the Keeper prompted softly. 

Rue tried to retreat into the darkness, to lose the awareness of her feet on the floor and the feeling of the back of her legs on the chair, to block out the sound of her own breath. For what felt like several minutes it was quiet and dark.

And then suddenly, she was outdoors, walking and gazing upward at the sky. It was not plain and flat. It was blue all over. It was deep, but see-through at the same time and incomprehensibly vast. Rue almost thought she might fall into it. She wanted to look up at the sky forever. She wanted to reach up and touch it. The muscles in her arm moved to fulfill the desire, but then the sky was gone, and she was back in the Keeper’s room with her own hand reaching foolishly toward the ceiling. 

“Sometimes I wish I could see what the sky feels like too,” the Keeper chuckled softly and Rue put her hand back down, embarrassed. “It’s a natural inclination,” she reassured Rue, “to want to explore a memory with your own mind and body, but the memories don’t work that way. They are an immutable record of the past and as soon as you attempt to move independently within them—either mentally or physically—you’ll lose contact and find yourself right back in the present. You must submit yourself entirely to the memory, forget your own mind and body, and let the memory take ahold of you. You must relinquish all control and let the memory guide you. It takes practice.” 

“Can I try again?”

“Not today, we’re already out of time,” the Keeper said, smiling at her eagerness. “And you must be tired.”

Rue hadn’t felt it until the Keeper mentioned it, but she instantly became aware of a fatigue in her mind and body.

“Rest well tonight and we’ll try again tomorrow. But I must warn you that it will be harder as we continue, when we begin to look farther beyond into the past and into minds of people you don’t know. It’s a longer journey, but I’ll lead you.”

Rue nodded, but her comment about rest brought another question to her mind.

“What’s your question?” the Keeper asked, reading her silence perfectly again. 

Part of Rue cautioned her against speaking about it, but the explanation behind the visual distortions—the color—made her hungry for more answers.

“Lately I’ve been having some visual experiences at night when I’m asleep,” Rue said carefully. “They’re like memories kind of, but they feel so real. Is that like color? Is that Seeing Beyond?”

“You mean the dream you reported to the Health Center,” the Keeper answered knowingly.

“The…what?”

“The experience you described to the Health Center is called a dream.”

“Dream,” Rue repeated, testing the shape of the new word on her lips. “What is that?”

“It’s an ancient human experience, a way our brains used to process information, events, and something called emotion. And yes, it is a part of your ability to See Beyond.” 

Rue sat straighter and leaned forward unconsciously.

“Emotion?” she echoed, confused by these unfamiliar terms. 

“They’re like feelings, but stronger,” the Keeper elaborated. 

“So why did people stop having dreams? Why don’t people dream anymore?” 

“Dreams became unnecessary,” she answered simply. “Our society leaves little room for subconscious exploration. It is not advantageous for people’s minds to wander. So dreams were eliminated.” 

The Keeper waved her hand as if to demonstrate the disappearance of the dreams. 

“Your dreaming is evidence that you feel deeply, and that experiences effect you profoundly. You don’t need to be afraid of the dreams, they’ll become a normal part of your life.”

“Thank you, Keeper” Rue said sincerely, “for answering all my questions.”

“Thank you, Rue,” the Keeper answered. “It is a joy to share my world with you.”

— — —

The next day at school, Rue sat across from Jules in the science lab. The room was abuzz with more chatter than usual as the students all exchanged stories of their first day of training. 

“The general procedure for influencing genetic sequences has involved allowing only the specimens with favorable gene characteristics to reproduce and weeding out those with unfavorable genotypes and phenotypes,” Jules explained enthusiastically as she carefully measured out salt to add to their beaker. Rue was attempting to listen, she really was but, little sparks of blue kept lighting up Jules’ eyes and Rue was determined to make the color stay.

“That method wasn’t entirely effective though, because there was only a certain percentage chance that the favorable genes would be passed on to the offspring,” Jules continued as she poured the salt into their beaker and stirred. Rue gritted her teeth and squinted slightly and the color stayed momentarily. 

“But now we can insert a code into the DNA that will copy onto both chromosomes and ensure a 100% chance that the desired genes will be inherited. We’re starting trials with wheat crops and we’ll move onto fish next! If those go well, we can start human trials within a year or two!” Jules concluded excitedly, finally looking Rue in the eye and breaking her concentration, causing the blue to vanish. “Why are you frowning at me?”

“Oh um sorry, just trying to keep up,” Rue answered hastily. “You know I didn’t pay much attention in biology. But it all sounds really interesting!”

Jules laughed and shook her head. “I’ve been talking too much. How’d _your_ first day go?”

Rue ducked her head. She wanted to tell Jules about blue, about the sky, and about the room with all its inexplicable contents. But she couldn’t. 

“I’m not—well I mean, I can’t talk about it, I’m not allowed to talk about it,” Rue explained awkwardly.

“Oh, okay,” Jules said, clearly disappointed. 

Rue felt a funny drop in her stomach. She and Jules talked about everything. From infancy, their lives had been nearly identical. They shared every experience. But not anymore.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rue wants to know what love is...

“Come in, come in!” the Keeper beckoned enthusiastically without preamble the next day. “We have so much to see and so little time!”

No sooner had Rue sat down, then the Keeper was reaching for her hand. Rue was still unaccustomed to interacting with such an energetic and expressive adult. 

“I want to show you my favorite animal. A memory from long ago. It will require all your focus to reach it, so here’s a hint: search for the heat. Once you feel the temperature difference, you’re almost there.”

Rue closed her eyes obediently and began to look for what the Keeper wanted her to see. It took what felt like many long minutes, but then she felt a warmth envelop her.

_It was a dry, all-encompassing heat that stuck in her lungs as she breathed. Then she saw the brilliant sunlight and vast, open landscape with no buildings or roads, only a few trees here and there. Some distance away, there stood a startlingly tall creature with a long neck, almost as tall as the tree whose leaves it was eating. By the creature’s flank stood a smaller version of it. Its baby, Rue realized. Giraffe, the memory supplied. The creature was a giraffe. A real one._

_Occasionally, its ears would flick this way or that, detecting every small sound, and it would pause to look around before returning to its lazy munching. Periodically, it would move with long, slow strides to a new tree with its offspring following close behind. She watched the adult eat peacefully for awhile, then it paused and its long neck curved down to sniff and lick at its baby. _

“So animals are real?” Rue inquired excitedly, once back in the present. 

“They _were_ real, but not anymore,” the Keeper clarified. “They went extinct, like most other species. I’m sure there are some surviving animals out there, but we occupy one of the few habitable areas left on the planet. The fish we cultivate are all we have left, really.”

“Why was I taught that they weren’t real?” Rue asked indignantly. “Why did my Instructors lie?”

“Lie? No, Rue. Your Instructors, your family, the Elders don’t lie. That is, of course, against the rules,” she added with a sadly sarcastic smile. “They too, are ignorant. The lie—if that’s what it is—goes back, and back, and back many years to the creators of our Community who decided to omit the truth. Not just about animals, but about everything.”

“Everything?”

“There was a whole world out there, Rue. Once.”

“You mean Elsewhere,” Rue surmised, realizing as she spoke that she hadn’t the vaguest idea of what Elsewhere was like. It only meant not here.

“No,” the Keeper disagreed. “Elsewhere is just an abstract concept. I mean the _world_. I mean mountains and valleys and deserts. Forests. Tundras. But those words mean nothing to you now. Come come, let me show you the ocean.” 

_She could taste the salt in the air and hear a rushing in her ears. A cold spray misted her face as a rush of water covered her bare feet. She felt the sea pulling her back toward its unimaginably vast body as the water rushed back, leaving her feet entrenched in the soft earth were she stood. Part of her wanted to give in, to follow the water and swim out into it, to let it hold her and float weightless in it. But she remained where she was, content to watch its eternal ebb and flow._

“I still don’t understand why…” Rue started with questions circulating in her mind like the incessant breaking of waves on the shore she had just witnessed. “Why didn’t we learn about all this—the world—in school?” 

“I assume those who built our society didn’t want following generations to know what they’d lost. What had been stolen from them. It’s less painful that way. That is the entire point of this arrangement, you see. You and I hold the pain of that loss so the Community doesn’t have to. We protect them from the knowledge of what they might’ve had.”

— — —

Weeks passed. 

Rue saw brilliant sunsets and walked through gentle rain. She stood on top of a mountain and looked out at the vast landscape below her. More and more colors revealed themselves to her, brightening her vision. Purple, green, orange. She saw more animals of all kinds and she conversed effortlessly using entirely unfamiliar words. The Keeper called them different languages that used to exist. In one particular memory, she had communicated without using her voice at all, but rather a complex system of hand signals and facial expressions that the Keeper told her was called sign language.

Her nights often felt like extensions of her training, with her dreams featuring colorful blends of the memories she experienced each day. 

“Detach, disconnect, forget yourself,” the Keeper would repeat to her often. “Extend your vision. Stretch it.” 

“It’s like exercising a muscle,” she explained once. “You have to build up its strength.” 

It was exhausting work and Rue left each training session with a dull throbbing ache in her head. But she was happy. The beauty of the memories made the discomfort negligible. The only troubling aspect was Rue’s inability to share her experiences with anyone else. After a certain number of situations in which she had to awkwardly get out of a question from a curious classmate about how her training was going, people had stopped asking. Rue now felt a distance growing between herself and her peer group who all talked so openly about what they were learning. 

“Why can’t anyone else see color?” Rue asked one afternoon. “I mean, Seeing Beyond, what exactly causes it?” 

“Let me show you,” the Keeper answered.

Rue automatically extended her hand toward her to receive whatever memory would serve as an explanation, but the Keeper shook her head. 

“No memory this time,” she said, instead standing and crossing the room to the intercom by the door. She pressed the button and spoke into it. 

“I would like to view Rue’s file, please.”

“Right away, Keeper,” a voice answered, and a few moments later, a binder was slid into the receiving box by the door. 

The Keeper carried it back to Rue and flipped through pages and pages of information on her. Upon finding a page with two images side-by-side, she held the binder out to Rue. 

“This is an image of a routine brain scan done when you were an infant,” she explained, pointing to one of the pictures. “The scan on the right shows typical brain activation in the average baby, your scan on the left shows highly abnormal brain activity. Your brain processes emotion like our ancestors did, before gene-editing silenced emotional receptivity and responsiveness.”

Rue studied the photo of her brain, lit up with brain activity contrasting with the scan next to it that showed significantly less. 

“But what caused my brain to work like that?” she wondered aloud.

“You’re an anomaly,” the Keeper answered. “There’s a mutation hidden somewhere in your genome. The primary genes that control emotion have been edited—switched off, essentially—but occasionally, some genes will spontaneously re-activate. Or unknown “mystery” genes will contribute to a person’s development of emotional processing. But it’s rare.” 

“So is this why other people don’t see colors?”

“Yes. Things like color-vision and emotional expression used to be our natural state of being, before they were eliminated with gene-editing. And the pills. The pills supplement the gene-editing by numbing the neural pathways. Which reminds me, you’re not still taking those pills are you?”

“I—well—yes,” Rue stammered, confused by her tone. “It’s required.”

“Pshhh,” the Keeper waved a hand impatiently. “I had stopped taking it by your age. There’s no need to take it anymore, its not very effective on those of us with unruly DNA anyway. Just be subtle about it, don’t let your family unit find out.”

Rue nodded, both shocked and relieved by the Keeper’s casual admission to breaking the rules, but choosing to keep her own transgression to herself.

“Sometimes I wish other people could feel,” Rue confessed. “I keep having this dream where I’m walking through the Central Plaza with Jules and there’s a giraffe up ahead but every time I try to point it out to her, she looks the opposite direction.” 

Rue laughed. It sounded ridiculous when she said it out loud, but in the moment, the dream always frustrated her immensely. 

“I want colors,” she declared. “I want animals and rivers and mountains. For everyone, not just me,” she expressed, keeping her language intentionally vague. 

There was really only one person she deeply longed to share such things with. She imagined the way Jules would light up at the sight of a rabbit or zebra. Rue thought about how Jules had loved working at the fish hatchery, remembering the way she would peer intently through the glass of the tanks and just watch the fish swim. Maybe she recognized the fish as animals—as beings—rather than a simple food source, even if she didn’t realize it. 

“Ah, and therein lies the catch, Rue. Desire. That’s what destroyed all those things in the first place. People became too…individual. They forgot their connection to all the many little things that sustained them. The bees, the soil. Trees. They forgot to care, and by the time they realized how much they needed them, they were already dying. Killed by the people’s self-absorption and wastefulness.” 

The Keeper’s face darkened with a rare frown as she spoke. 

“It was decided that for our survival, we needed to lessen people’s desires. Color represents choice and individual identity expression, things we can no longer afford. Without color, emotion, dreams, our society has created people without desires. Wanting things is wasteful, it’s unsustainable. So the Community has genetically engineered contentedness. That’s the key, Rue. People who are content aren’t greedy and they don’t consume more resources than they need. They don’t ask questions. They don’t wonder about things, because they don’t need to. They simply accept. That’s how we survive now.”

__ __ __

“Keeper?” Rue asked one day, having just experienced a memory of an old dog with a graying face laying its head in her lap as she stroked its silky soft ears. The peace of the memory had faded, leaving her with a piercing pain in her head from the effort she’d expended to reach the vision. She found herself about to ask for Relief of Pain, before she remembered she wasn’t allowed. She drooped forward, putting her head in her hands. 

“Is this what the Chief Elder meant when she said my training would be painful?”

The Keeper didn’t answer her right away and Rue peeked up at her. She appeared deep in thought, with a frown creasing her wrinkled face. After a long moment, she nodded slowly and sighed. 

“I suppose it’s time,” she declared quietly. “I wanted you to know how beautiful the world was first, but I can’t delay it any longer.”

The Keeper’s words rang with reluctant resolve but her hands remained folded in her lap, making no movement to offer Rue a memory. After a pause, Rue steeled herself for whatever was to come and reached her hand out, giving the Keeper a small nod of encouragement. The Keeper took her hand and gave it a squeeze of comfort. 

“This memory comes from near the end of the world as it was. Not too long ago, in the grand scheme of things. It might give you a sense of why our Community is the way it is.”

_A terrible hunger gnawed at her stomach. The hunger consumed her, until she could think of nothing else. There was no relief from it._

_She was lying on a bed under an open window. A weak breeze occasionally caused the light fabric of the curtains to flutter and her eyes followed the movement lazily. From her position, she could see an old bee’s nest clinging to the underside of the eaves, probably vacant for several years now. She gazed up for a long time at that dead, empty home. She might’ve cried, if she’d had the energy. After awhile, she summoned the will to lift herself from the bed. She stood still for a moment while her head spun from the sudden movement, then crossed the room to a small desk with a pitcher atop it. She carefully poured herself a glass of slightly murky water. The hand grasping the handle of the pitcher shook with the effort of holding its weight. Her arms were unnaturally thin. _

_She drank the glass of water thirstily, trying to ignore the earthy taste of it and the silty feel it left behind in her mouth. The water momentarily replicated a feeling of fullness in her empty gut, but did not quiet the incessant thoughts of food. Her memory self could remember a time when she had plenty to eat. Now, surrounded by miles and miles of dead soil with nothing left to give and with water running out, there would never be food like that again. She didn’t even have the strength to move on and continue looking. She was going to die here. _

_She was going to die._

Rue opened her eyes slowly. She was back in the Keeper’s room, but a faint aching in her stomach remained. Her arms moved automatically to clutch at her abdomen and she looked down to see that her body looked as it always did, not emaciated as it was in the memory. 

She walked her bike slowly back to her dwelling that evening, with one arm wrapped around her still-aching stomach. 

She ate ravenously at the evening meal, shoveling food into her mouth.

“Manners, Rue,” her Father chided with a light chuckle. “Don’t forget to breathe.” 

After finishing her portion before anyone else, Rue watched her family unit talk cheerfully about the day, feeling—for the first time in her life—separate from them. They didn’t know what hunger was. They never would.

— — —

The pain the Keeper revealed to her only increased after that day. Pain that had her wondering why anything mattered at all. The horrors of war, cruelty, and all manner of violence haunted her days and nights. The beautiful memories were now interlaced with terrible ones of consuming fear and paralyzing panic. She felt no desire to share those memories with Jules. She didn’t want that pain for her. 

But in her infinite kindness, after every painful memory the Keeper would lead her to a joyful one to end the day. 

Rue’s favorite memories were about love. The feeling of security the came from the love between a parent and baby, the unbridled joy of love between best friends and siblings, the simple love of an animal. Memories of arms slung casually around friend’s shoulders and laughing until her stomach was sore or a comforting hug. 

Despite the pain, Rue’s vision was growing stronger and the progress encouraged her. 

The blue stayed in Jules’ eyes now. Flickers of pink had started warming her cheeks too, and her hair was no longer just a simple light shade, but a shimmery golden blond. Rue had to exercise great restraint to stop herself from staring, but wasn’t always successful. 

One day, while walking with Jules from the eating area back to class after the midday meal, Rue tripped up the stairs, dropping her textbooks. Jules laughed light-heartedly and helped her gather her things. 

“You might be the esteemed Keeper of Records, but to me you’re still my clumsy friend Rue-Rue,” she teased.

Rue ducked her head and smiled at the use of her childhood nickname, feeling the now familiar warmth rise in her cheeks as she fumbled with her books. 

“Bye, I’ll see you later!” Jules called as they reached the end of the hall and she turned left to her Logical Reasoning classroom while Rue continued to Calculus. 

“Bye, I lo—” Rue started, then cut herself off, startled by what she’d been about to say.

“What?” 

“Nothing.”

“No, you were going to say something,” Jules countered stubbornly. Ordinarily, Jules might’ve let it go, but it was clear she was a little exasperated with Rue’s evasiveness lately.

“No, nothing,” Rue insisted.

Jules narrowed her eyes slightly, unconvinced, then turned to enter her class with a half-hearted wave.

“I love you,” she murmured quietly to herself after Jules disappeared, testing out the words for the first time with her own voice. 

She’d heard and spoke the words many times now in memories, as a casual parting phrase between friends or an affectionate reminder from parent to child. Had she merely become accustomed to the phrase after hearing it so often? Or did she really love Jules?

Rue waited until the end of the training session that day to broach the subject.

“Keeper, have you ever loved someone?”

The Keeper raised her eyebrows slightly at the question. 

“I have. I loved my friends and my parents, I loved the Keeper before me who trained me, and I loved my spouse and my children.”

“You had a family unit? As an adult?”

“I did.”

“But I thought the Keeper couldn’t have a family unit. That’s what my rules say.” 

“Yes,” the Keeper nodded slowly. “Your rules are different than mine where when I was selected as Keeper.”

“Why did the rules change?” 

The Keeper sighed and looked down. She never expressed any impatience with Rue’s constant questions, but now she appeared reluctant to answer. 

“What were your children like?” Rue pressed curiously, hoping that might elicit a response.  
“Maybe I’ll tell you about them sometime,” the Keeper spoke finally. “But for now, I have one more memory to show you today.”

“About love?” she asked hopefully.

“Yes. About love.” 

_She found herself in a dwelling, a house. A woman stood in the doorway in front of her. Mother, she perceived. A visceral, burning anger consumed her. She desperately wanted to leave, but her mother was preventing her escape. _

_“Leave me the fuck alone!” she screamed. She tried to shove past her, but her mother grabbed ahold of her. She tried to yank her arms out of her mother’s grip without success, and was suddenly pushed down to the ground, her arms pinned to the floor. _

_“Let me go,” she cried as she struggled in vain.“I’m not doing drugs!” _

_“Look at me in the eyes when you say it. Look me in the eyes and tell me you’re not using,” her mother demanded. _

_She stopped fighting then, and blinked tears away before locking eyes with her mother._

_“I’m not using drugs,” she said slowly, quietly. It was a lie. A bold-faced lie._

_She could tell that her mother didn’t believe her, but it seemed to be shock of the blatant deceit that had her releasing her wrists with hurt in her eyes._

_She looked away quickly and got to her feet, back on her mission and striding out of the room. But she got only a few steps when her mother was pushing past her and blocking her path again. _

_Overcome with anger, she reached up and tore a picture from the wall and the glass of the frame shattered on the ground. Without missing a beat, she bent down and grabbed one of the larger shards of glass and held it out in front of her._

_“Back the fuck up, back the fuck up,” she warned, advancing toward her mother, whose eyes were now filled with a fear that sparked a bitter satisfaction in her. But then a twinge of pain in her hand corrupted her tunnel vision. She was holding the glass so tightly that it was beginning to cut into her palm. Automatically, she opened her hand and the shard dropped to the ground, shattering into even smaller pieces. She stared down at the mess and the color red now blooming from a small cut on her hand. The numb, blind determination to get out of the house was blotted out by a flood of remorse as she realized what she’d just done. What she’d been about to do._

_Suddenly, her legs seemed unable to support her weight and she leaned against the wall, sliding down into a sitting position, curling in on herself as heavy, gasping sobs overtook her. She felt a cautious hand on her shoulder and heard echos of her mother’s comforting, forgiving voice._

Rue resurfaced from the memory with a gasp, breathing heavily. Her hands shook.

“That…that wasn’t love,” she stuttered.

“It was,” the Keeper countered softly. “Love comes in many forms. It’s very beautiful, but it is also deeply, _exquisitely_, painful at times.”

“Why was the mother holding me—her down? It hurt.”

“She, the daughter, was hurting herself, putting herself in danger. Her mother was trying to stop her.”

“Why would she hurt herself?” Rue asked, thoroughly perplexed. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“It wasn’t her choice necessarily, she was suffering from an old disease, called addiction. She depended on consciousness-altering substances to take away her pain.”

“Was addiction eliminated? Like other diseases?”

“In a sense, yes,” she answered with a dark smile that Rue had learned meant she didn’t really believe the words she was saying. 

Rue hesitated, but having come to the understanding that typical standards of decorum didn’t apply to the Keeper, she proceeded with her question. 

“What do you mean, ‘in a sense’?”

“Well, we’ve built a society that has…cured us of our humanness. People live in an altered state. Just considering the pills, one might argue that we are a society of addicts.”

“What if everyone stopped taking the pills? What if they just stopped?”

The Keeper gave her a long look, as if studying her. Rue sometimes felt that she could read every thought in her head. She knew the vision didn’t work like that, but she couldn’t help feeling uncomfortably exposed when the Keeper subjected her to that searching gaze. 

“Most people likely wouldn’t experience a difference. Once the brain is developed, it typically can’t reacquire skills like emotional processing. I assume many adults are transitioned to a placebo pill once the brain is fully developed. They don’t really need the active suppressant at that point, but it helps to train children into the habit of daily pill-taking if everyone does it.”

Rue nodded silently, absorbing the information.

“Listen Rue,” the Keeper looked at her seriously. “I chose to show you that memory so you would understand how painful love can be. I cannot tell you how to feel. I cannot stop you from loving someone, love doesn’t work that way. But I must warn you that nothing can come from allowing these feelings to develop further except more pain for you. Because Jules cannot feel it back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a little [playlist on youtube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLb-Bhv-ctUh3mxfTC8PrG_HcGF4QrcCy2) for alternate-universe Rue-Rue of songs she might listen to while figuring out all these emotions if only she knew what music was lol poor baby. She'll be introduced to music soon I think spoiler alert I guess. Some of the songs on it are kind of a joke but idk sometimes I just have to poke a little fun at the characters that live in my brain. 
> 
> In other news, Antarctica hit 65 degrees for the first time ever recently and I'm equally terrified and horrified.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is a lot bigger and smaller than Rue ever imagined...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one gets a little dark, content warning for infanticide.

Rue didn’t want to believe it. She wished the Keeper were lying. But the Keeper didn’t lie. Not to her. 

She pondered the situation as she walked back to her dwelling, wheeling her bicycle beside her. She got several questioning glances from people passing on their bicycles, riding home after their day of work. Few people walked from place to place after becoming a Nine and receiving their bicycle as it was not considered an efficient mode of transport. But Rue had lately found herself savoring the time that walking offered to think. The steady rhythm of her steps prompted a constant stream of thoughts and ideas. 

Just for an instant, Rue let herself imagine that Jules could feel. She pictured her in memories of uncontrolled laughter, casual touch, and loving, trusting companionship. But she shut those thoughts away after only a few seconds, guilt replacing the warm, happy feeling. Nothing could happen. Ever. Jules would never return her feelings. Even before their lives diverged at the Ceremony, it had always been this way. And would only continue to be this way. 

——

Her dreams started off as usual that night. Colorful and ethereal and light. 

She was walking through an orchard with birds chirping above her, and soft sunlight streaming through the gaps in the branches. Gazing up at the bright red of the apples and the vibrant green leaves, she took deep breaths of sweet-smelling, fresh air. A gentle pitter-patter of droplets on the canopy of leaves announced the arrival of rain and Rue tipped her head back to see clouds forming. A large droplet of water finally found its way through the protection of the branches, falling square on her forehead. 

Then, without warning, something stirred in some deep, hidden part of her memory and Rue was being jerked out of the dream orchard and pulled like a magnet to something very different. 

_She was laying in a dark room, curled on her side and cocooned in blankets. The only source of light came from a screen in front of her displaying the bright and cheerful lives of other people. She watched intently, distracted only slightly by the nagging sensation of needing to use the bathroom. She felt hours blend into days as she laid there, her limbs too heavy to move. The pressure in her bladder steadily increased until the mild discomfort turned to a stabbing pain. She knew she should get up. Its wasn’t that hard, she tried to reason with herself. But another voice in her head told her it was an insurmountable task. Impossible. So she stayed where she was._

_When she could stand it no longer, she fought the feeling of deep exhaustion in her bones and struggled to get out of bed. Just the action of moving herself up into a sitting position required extraordinary effort as every small movement caused her excruciating pain. Breathing heavily, she stood arduously, feeling the strain in every muscle of her body and immediately doubled over as the sharp, stabbing pain intensified. With every ounce of willpower she had, she moved herself a step toward the door and away from her bed. Then another step. Finally she got through the door, a feat that inspired just enough motivation to keep going. She gripped the wall as she walked, depending on it to keep herself upright. But as another wave of pain hit her, she stumbled and fell to the ground. She tried to crawl, but her body gave out and she collapsed on the floor. She thought vaguely of her sister, hoping it wouldn’t be her that found her crumpled in a helpless heap. Relief washed through her when she heard her mother’s voice._

All of a sudden, a spark of awareness from somewhere in her own mind started to pull her out of the memory.

She knew that voice. 

_Gentle hands were helping her stand up._

She knew those hands. 

_Leaning heavily on her mother, they continued down the hallway._

She knew that hallway.

As her awareness heightened, the scene in the hallway faded and Rue felt herself coming back to her own reality. She opened her eyes in her own bed in her own sleeping room. A glance at the clock beside her bed let her know she was running late but she couldn’t get herself to move. 

It was Giovanni poking his head into her room that finally compelled her to get up. 

“Ruuuuue, you’re gonna be late for school,” he warned in a happy, teasing voice before skipping away.

Once she’d gotten herself ready and packed her book bag, Rue did something she had never done before. She exited the dwelling through the side door to retrieve her bicycle but before stepping out of the bike port, she peeked around the wall and looked down the street to find Jules waiting at the corner. With no real understanding of her own motivations, Rue waited, ignoring her urge to join her friend. She watched as Jules eventually left without her and only then did Rue venture out into the street. 

She walked on stiff, tired legs, wheeling her bike beside her. She should be rushing, she should care that she was late, she should be worried about the look of disapproval she’d receive from her Instructor. But she couldn’t summon the will to care about any of it, and almost without her permission, her weary steps started carrying her to the Keeper’s room rather than school. She didn’t know what the consequence for not attending school was, but it didn’t seem to matter. 

Her arrival at the Annex brought a look of surprise to the desk attendant’s face who glanced at the clock on the wall, perhaps wondering if the day had already passed by without his notice. 

“I need to see the Keeper,” Rue stated plainly, without bothering with a standard greeting. 

“The Keeper does not like to be disturbed at this time of day,” he said, eyes flicking uncertainly to the clock again. 

It occurred to Rue that it was perhaps out of deference that he did not question her being there when she should be in school.

“I need to see the Keeper now,” Rue insisted flatly, unable to infuse her voice with the urgency she felt and blessedly, the attendant reached for the intercom button.

“The new Keeper is here, requesting to see you,” he said into the microphone. 

“Come in, Rue,” the Keeper’s voice answered. 

The Keeper took one look at Rue as she entered the room and spoke into the intercom once more.

“Please inform the new Keeper’s Instructor that she will not be attending school today.”

“Of course, Keeper,” came the prompt reply. 

Despite her urgent need to see the Keeper, Rue now hesitated to put into words what had happened. The heaviness of it still weighed on her, sapping her energy, and she felt herself droop. She let the Keeper lead her to the couch and sank down onto it wearily.

“What happened?” the Keeper asked in a soft voice, as if she was worried if she spoke too loud, Rue might startle.

“I’m not sure, but I _think_ I entered a memory while I was sleeping. Is that possible?”

“It’s certainly possible,” the Keeper mused. “It means your vision’s getting stronger. And in sleep we’re mentally unguarded, less tethered to our own reality, and therefore more receptive to the information of the past. Describe exactly what happened,” she encouraged, leaning forward. 

So Rue relayed the incident, careful to include every detail of how what had started as an ordinary dream had transformed into the memory as the Keeper listened intently, nodding and frowning. 

“It was almost like I was stuck inside the memory for awhile, but then I recognized something that pulled me back to my own consciousness.”  
“What was it that you recognized?” the Keeper inquired. 

“It was the voice of the mother, and the hallway. I think it was the same person from that memory about love. The addict. It was another of her memories.”

The Keeper nodded slowly, seemingly deep in thought. She was twisting a lock of her long silvery hair around her finger. 

“That memory of the mother fighting with her daughter came to me not long after I met you,” she said thoughtfully. “It presented itself to me in a similar way, out of the blue, while I was reading one day. I thought the tenor of the memory seemed familiar somehow, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I felt strongly that the memory was meant for you.”

She went on twirling her hair in loops and gazing into space for awhile before she spoke again.

“Y’know Rue, I think you may have found one of your past lives.”

“What does that mean?”  
“Well, there’s no concrete answer, it all depends on what you believe, I suppose,” the Keeper answered measuredly to Rue’s surprise. She’d become accustomed to the Keeper having a solid explanation for everything. 

“I don’t know what I believe,” Rue said, leaning forward and putting her heavy head in her hands.

“You will, in time,” the Keeper chuckled. 

“Well what do you believe?” Rue asked curiously.

“I think I believe that….bits of souls are…recyclable in a sense, they can be reborn in different people. Sometimes we hear or feel little echoes of our past lives. They call to us in dreams, or gut-feelings, or what people once called deja-vu, a sudden inexplicable feeling of intense familiarity. Or in a stranger that we feel we already know.”

“So,” Rue frowned as she tried to piece things together. “Do you mean. Is that person in those memories…me?”

“That’s something you can decide for yourself,” the Keeper said, smiling.

“So do you have past lives?”

“Yes. I believe everyone does.” 

“So how do you see them? Do you think of them as past versions of yourself?”

“I view them as parts of me that contain knowledge that presents itself to me when I need it.”

“Do you ever feel…trapped by it? The feeling from the memory hasn’t gone away,” Rue confessed with a sigh. “I still feel so heavy.”

“The feelings do linger sometimes,” she agreed sympathetically. “It sounds like this person was suffering from depression as well as addiction.”

Rue felt herself slump even more, burdened by the persisting hopelessness and an emerging desire to help that person although she knew it was impossible. 

“You know,” the Keeper began, “I think I know of something that might help take your mind off things. I was just thinking that we’ve been so busy with the memories, you haven’t had time to explore this room yet. Why don’t I show you what the piano does,” she suggested, gesturing to the big, strange apparatus in the corner. “I was just playing it before you arrived.”

Rue nodded gratefully, feeling a deep rush of affection for the Keeper and her perceptive nature. The Keeper smiled and stood up, motioning for Rue to follow.

She led Rue to the corner of the room where the large wooden contraption sat whose function had remained a mystery. The Keeper sat at the bench in front of it, then patted the space next to her. Rue joined her on the bench, wondering what they could possibly be doing. 

“Just listen,” the Keeper instructed, poising her wrinkled hands above the row of white and black rectangles. 

Then her fingers were moving, pressing the rectangles down in complex patterns. 

Rue tried to understand how the movements of the Keeper’s hands could be making the beautiful blend of sounds, but couldn’t. She couldn’t comprehend it. Spellbound, Rue sat completely still as the sounds swirled around her, sending a shiver through her. For some unknown reason, it made her want to laugh.

“It’s called music,” the Keeper explained. “Do you want to try?”

Rue reached out a hand and depressed a single white key, then two at the same time. A giggle bubbled through her lips, and she felt lighter.  
“How did you make it sound like that?” Rue asked, envious of the Keeper’s ability to create the wondrous combination of tones. 

“Learning to play an instrument is like learning another language, it takes time. But I could teach you, if you’d like.”

Rue nodded eagerly and the Keeper chuckled at her enthusiasm. 

“Why don’t we play a game,” the Keeper suggested. “I’ll play a phrase of music, and you try to tell me what emotion it’s conveying.”

Rue nodded, anxious to hear more of the entrancing music. 

The Keeper’s fingers moved quickly across the keys in a jumpy, energetic fashion. Rue deliberated for a moment after the music stopped before answering.

“Joy?” she guessed.

“Very good,” the Keeper praised. “What about this one?” 

After Rue had identified many different emotions floating sonically through the air, the Keeper returned to the piece she’s played first and Rue got up and walked around to peer into the opening at the back of the instrument to watch little mallets hit each individual string to create sound. 

Rue wandered freely about the room as the Keeper continued to play, examining the many curious objects on the shelves. 

A spherical object supported by a metal stand caught her interest. Its outside was mostly blue with some irregular shapes of different colors interspersed across its surface that were labelled with unfamiliar terms. 

“It’s a globe,” the Keeper told her, bringing the music to a quiet close and getting up to join her. “A physical model of the world. Or what it used to look like anyway,” she amended with a sigh.  
“See these white areas at the top and bottom?” she asked pointing them out. “That’s ice. Remember the memory of the polar bear?”

Rue nodded, recalling the frigid air and how her breath had been visible as a white cloud when she exhaled. She had watched from a distance as a huge bear ambled across the endlessly empty landscape. 

“The bear’s world disappeared when the ice melted and so did that of the people living in these areas as the water covered their land,” she gestured to several places on the globe. 

Rue had experienced enough memories of the climate crisis that she didn’t need to ask what had happened to all those people.

“So where are we? Where do we live?” she asked instead.

“It’s difficult to know for sure, but I’d say we’re somewhere around here,” the Keeper answered, pointing to one of the upper regions of land. 

“Keeper,” Rue said, as a thought suddenly occurred to her, “I remember you once said we live in one of the last habitable places in the world. So where do people go when they’re Released to Elsewhere? Where exactly is Elsewhere on the globe?”

The Giver looked at Rue for a long time, her expression unreadable.

“There was a Ceremony of Release performed just this morning,” she said finally. Something about her voice seemed restrained, carefully composed. “Would you like to see it?”

“Aren’t Ceremonies of Release private?” Rue asked dubiously. 

“You’re the new Keeper, Rue. You have access to any information you want. All you need to do is ask.”

The Keeper glanced toward the intercom on the wall and then back at Rue. Rue waited a moment, not sure if she was serious, but a single nod from the Keeper encouraged her to stand and walk to the intercom. Tentatively, she pressed the button and spoke into the microphone.

“I would like to um, view this morning’s Ceremony of Release…please,” she requested awkwardly.

“Right away, Keeper,” the attendant replied dutifully. 

Rue suppressed her surprise at being addressed as Keeper and waited until a digital memory chip was deposited into the receiving box. She carried it back to the Keeper who then opened a cabinet in between the shelves of books and inserted into the drive connected to the screen housed inside.

Footage of an empty room appeared on the screen. It looked similar to the rooms in which Doctor’s visits were held with a small counter and sink on one side and a raised bed-like piece of furniture covered in disposable paper in the center. A small table stood against the opposite wall that resembled a changing table. 

After a few seconds, a person dressed in a Nurturer’s uniform entered the room carrying a Newchild that appeared to be a few months old. 

“That’s my friend, Alexandra!” Rue realized with surprise as she recognized the Nurturer. 

The Keeper remained silent with her eyes trained on the screen. 

“Oh, I remember her saying something about the potential Release of a Newchild that wasn’t reaching the necessary developmental milestones,” Rue recalled. 

The Keeper said nothing. 

“I didn’t know she had already been trained in Release! She must have progressed through the basic Nurturer training very quickly. But I guess that makes sense, she did so many volunteer hours there, she must have already known how to do everything else,” Rue speculated with satisfaction. Her friend was clearly doing well in her career assignment. 

“Hush, Rue,” the Keeper commanded. “Watch.”

So Rue observed silently as Alexandra set the fussy baby in a container on the table. She then turned around to the cabinet behind her and began preparing something. The infant’s wails became louder and more distressed, but Alexandra did not turn around. She didn’t coo at it or use the cheerful singsong voice Rue had heard many times back when they’d volunteered at the Nurturing Center together. Rue wished she would turn around and comfort the child, but Alexandra was focused on whatever task was at hand. After another moment, she finally turned around and was holding a syringe. 

Oh, the child needed vaccinations before being sent Elsewhere, Rue realized. Alexandra gently took ahold of one of the baby’s tiny, waving arms and held it still while she carefully administered the shot. 

Then, she turned away again and disposed of the needle and began putting things away in the cupboard again. The child’s cries became softer, then stopped entirely. The baby’s restless wriggling turned into a disjointed jerking motion. The child’s head fell limply to the side. Then it was still.

Rue’s blood ran cold.

It was dead. The child was dead. Alexandra had killed it. 

Rue felt dizzy and the room began to spin sickeningly around her. She felt blindly with shaking hands for something solid to grip onto but encountered only the soft velvet of the couch beneath her which offered nothing to grasp as she slumped to the side and let the safety of darkness envelope her.

She awoke to the Keeper’s hand tapping her cheek. At first, she thought she was coming back from a memory of darkness, but then the cold, clammy sweat on her skin made her shiver and she realized she had passed out. That had happened to her only once before, when she locked her knees after running. Then the images her brain had blotted out came flooding back.

“How…why?” she stammered, unable, for once, to construct a coherent question.

“They don’t understand death like we do Rue,” the Keeper explained gently. “It’s just procedure to them. Efficiency. As meaningless as pruning a fruit tree.”

Rue shook her head, refusing to accept it. 

First, she cried at the image of the lifeless child cemented in her mind.

And then she cried for Alexandra. Her sweet, gentle friend who was now a murderer and didn’t even know she was a murderer. In some way, she felt as if Alexandra had died, too. The loss left Rue with a hollow feeling. As she sobbed, she searched her mind for the word to describe that sensation. It was familiar, one she had experienced in memories before. Grief, she finally remembered, that was its name. This was the feeling of grief.

“Please,” she whispered brokenly through her tears, “please, can you give me a happy memory?”

The Keeper seemed to consider it briefly, but then shook her head sadly. 

“This pain is yours, Rue. It belongs to you. Don’t try to hide from it. Feel it, honor it.”

The raw agony cut through Rue to her core. The Keeper sat quietly with her, sometimes rubbing her back in soothing circles. She couldn’t leave the Keeper’s room until she regained control of herself, but several times, the tears would stop for awhile, only to start again. 

“I can’t go back, I can’t go back,” she sobbed over and over, not entirely certain what she meant through the overwhelming sadness. 

She thought back through all the years of her life that she had lived in complete, blissful security. Knowing nothing, understanding nothing. It was that comfortable ignorance maybe, that she mourned the loss of along with the loss she felt for Alexandra. 

The Keeper waited patiently for a long time, until Rue had calmed enough to more clearly articulate herself. 

“I can’t go home. I can’t go back to school tomorrow like everything’s normal. I can’t do it.”

“You have to,” the Keeper told her softly.

All at once, Rue couldn’t stand the Keeper’s calm demeanor. How could she remain so composed after what they’d just witnessed?

“Why can’t I stay here?” Rue lashed out. “Why can’t I live my life in this room and hide from everybody else like you do?!”

Rue stood and turned her back on the Keeper, marching across the room and out the door before she could see the effect of her cruel words.

She didn’t think about where she was going. It didn’t matter, she only wanted to get away. Her determined strides carried her past the small Bicycle Repair building and the larger Food Processing building. Within a few minutes, she’d reached the paved path running parallel to the river. If she turned right and walked for about three miles, she’d eventually reach the fish hatchery. She decided to turn left down the path, following the flow of the water. 

Memories from other lives of peaceful swims in lakes and streams filled her mind and she longed to descend to the gentle slope down to the riverbank to feel the cool water on her skin. But that, of course, was against the rules. The river was a water source and power source, just a tool that helped the community function, not a recreation area. It had a dangerous current and contained potentially harmful bacteria that one could accidentally swallow. Recreational swimming took place indoors at the Community Pool in chlorinated, temperature-controlled, supervised water. Much safer.

So Rue resisted the urge to let the river carry her in its embrace, settling to simply walk alongside it in its endless quest onward. Where was it going? 

As she walked, she passed the utility bridge that vehicles used to bring food into the community from the crops surrounding it. A sign posted next to it declared that it was for Crop Collector use only. It occurred to her then that the river might serve a third purpose besides providing water and electricity. It was a barrier. 

Rue’s steps eventually carried her to the end of the path, facing a simple rail fence, with a grain field on the other side. A sign attached to the fence announced that only Crop Tenders should proceed beyond it. The fence was short, only about waist-height. She could hop over it easily, were she inclined. 

What was beyond the crops the surrounded the Community on all sides? And why had she never thought about the world beyond them before? She’d always known that the crops were off-limits since she was a child. The community couldn’t have citizens wandering around and carelessly stepping on delicate plants. Protection of their food sources was paramount. Community member’s footsteps aways stopped at these boundaries, and so did their thoughts. There was no reason to think about what lay beyond. 

Rue’s world felt simultaneously bigger and smaller than ever. It felt as though every cell in her body were stretching and straining to encompass the enormity of the things she now felt and understood. And she felt the boundaries of the Community pressing in on her from all sides, containing her.

She spotted the Meal Delivery workers beginning their evening rounds and realized it was time to return to her dwelling. She stood and watched for a moment as the workers methodically moved from dwelling to dwelling with the evening meal like a well-oiled machine. For an instant, the normalcy of it seemed foreign. Then, Rue collected herself and started on her way back.

__ __

She barely ate that evening, merely picking at her food and quickly excusing herself before her parents could give her a reproving look or a reminder about food waste. 

No sleep came that night. Every time Rue closed her eyes, she saw things she didn’t want to see. So she stared wide-eyed into the darkness and focused on repressing every thought, every emotion that threatened to make her crumble apart. It should’ve been easy, given that she’d spent every day of the last few months exercising her ability to let go of her identity so she could experience the memories. But she struggled.

For once, she was the first of her family members out of bed in the morning. All the automatic and routine tasks of readying herself for school seemed to require all her focus. It felt mechanical and disingenuous, like she was faking it. Only pretending to be herself. She dressed robotically and twisted her curls into a messy, uneven braid. She swallowed a few bites of food and discreetly disposed of her pill. 

She waited again in the bike port until she saw Jules depart, wanting to postpone interaction as long as possible. She spent the ride to school carefully composing herself, attempting to empty her mind of every thought and emotion. By the time she arrived, she had a plan. She could just pretend like this wasn’t her life, it was just another memory that would be over soon.

Rue steeled herself and walked through the doors. It felt like years since she’d been here, rather than one day. 

She could do this. She had to. 

Keeping her head down, she walked straight to class. Jules was already seated at their shared lab table when she entered the classroom, looking at her expectantly. 

“Hi,” Rue said shyly as she took her seat.

“Why weren’t you in school yesterday?” Jules questioned without preamble, her blue eyes searching. 

Rue sighed. She couldn’t think about yesterday.

“I just had an extra training session with the Keeper,” she lied smoothly.

Jules tipped her chin up slightly, looking defiant. She could see through the lie.

“You look….exhausted,” Jules surmised.

Rue could imagine how she looked through Jules’ eyes. Hair wild, dark circles under her eyes…

Rue turned her head away to escape her scrutiny, just as Alexandra entered the room. She gave Rue and Jules a wave before taking her seat two tables in front of theirs. Rue froze. Her heart began to race and her breath came quick and shallow like there was no more air left in the world. The Instructor had begun the lecture, but his words were no more than muffled sounds to Rue. She watched as Alexandra took out her notebook and started taking careful notes. Rue’s eyes followed her left hand moving back and forth across the page. That was the hand that had held the syringe. 

Rue felt the dizziness coming back and she stood shakily, hastily excusing herself to the bathroom. Luckily, the hallway was empty, because Rue couldn’t hold herself together any longer. Tears blurred her vision, but she found her way to the bathroom. Seeing that the stalls were empty, Rue broke down entirely, gripping the sink as her body shook with sobs. 

She heard footsteps in the hallway and the door opened.

“Rue?”

Rue scrubbed roughly at her tearstained face before turning around, knowing she was likely only making it more pink and puffy. Not that Jules would see the difference in color. 

“Are you…are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she answered shortly. Jules had to leave, she couldn’t see her like this. 

“Are you sure? Do you need anything?”

She needed a hug. She needed a shoulder to cry on. She _needed_ Jules to understand. 

Did Jules remember the way she used to comfort Rue when they were little? How natural it was back then? She _had_ to, Rue thought—the memories were so vivid in her own mind—but the way Jules was looking at her suggested otherwise. She appeared bewildered, lost; wanting to help but not knowing how, as if physical touch was a language she no longer spoke. An irrational flash of irritation sparked in Rue. It felt like the anger that had reared its head at the Keeper the day before, only this time it didn’t make her want to escape and hide. It made her want to be seen. And heard. 

Almost as if Jules had heard Rue’s unspoken longing, she took a tentative step toward her.

“I said I’m _fine_ Jules,” Rue snapped through gritted teeth, looking down refusing to look her in the eye, keeping her gaze trained on the floor. “Go back to class.”

_Stay, stay, stay_ a voice in her mind begged.

Jules fell back a step, as if Rue’s words had knocked her off-balance. There was a beat of painful silence, then Jules turned and left.

Another little piece inside Rue broke then. Rue drew in a long, stuttering sigh, then let a few more tears leak out before splashing her face with cool water and pulling herself together. When she was satisfied that she look sufficiently normal, she reluctantly exited the bathroom, only to stop short in her tracks. 

Jules was leaning on the wall across from the bathroom door waiting for her. Her arms were folded around herself and a look of confusion and concern marred her usually cheerful face. Rue instantly felt a pang of regret. How could she have spoken to her that way?

“Jules I—”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Jules interrupted before Rue could get it out. “And you don’t have to explain anything. Just…don’t shut me out, okay?”

The words made Rue want to cry again, but she merely nodded. 

Maybe she imagined it, but Rue thought Jules stayed closer by her side than usual as they returned to class. The backs of their hands brushed together for an instant as they walked. But it didn’t matter, Rue told herself firmly. Eventually Jules would give up on her. 

Rue understood the Keeper’s warning now. In that moment, she didn’t want Jules to feel what she felt, but the opposite. She didn’t want to bring Jules into her world, she wanted to be let back into Jules’. Her perfectly painless reality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone's doing okay out there! The world is feeling pretty dystopian these days...


End file.
